Let there be peace in the valleyHistorian probes its difficult evolution

Published 5:30 am, Sunday, April 22, 2001

Michael Howard is one of Britain's most distinguished military historians. His Franco-Prussian War, published in 1961, is considered a classic. His other important books include War in European History (1976) and The Lessons of History (1991).

Sir Michael -- he was knighted in 1986 -- has held chaired professorships at Oxford and Yale and helped found the International Institute for Strategic Studies, of which he is life president. Nor is his military knowledge entirely theoretical. During World War II he fought with the British army in Italy. Twice wounded, he won the Military Cross.

In The Invention of Peace -- at 113 pages, really an extended essay -- the 78-year-old historian distills themes he has explored in earlier books: the dialectic between war and peace, the role the former has played in European history, the reasons the latter seems so elusive as a permanent state of affairs. Skeptical, even bleak in outlook, the book and its argument might be summed up as this: War is easy, peace is hard.

Until the latter pages of this thought-provoking book, Howard's focus is on Europe, in part because that's his area of expertise but more importantly, he says, because in Europe and its offshoot, North America, "there developed the thinking about war and peace that now constitutes the bulk of global discourse about the topic."

The idea that peace could be the norm rather than the exception in international relations is a relatively recent development, dating back no more than 200 years, he writes in his introduction. Hence the title of the book, which opens with a line from the 19th-century English jurist Sir Henry Maine: "War appears to be as old as mankind, but peace is a modern invention."

The bulk of The Invention of Peace is an exhilarating gallop across 1,500 years of European history as Howard shows how integral war has been to the evolution of the state. It was H. Rap Brown who said that violence is as American as apple pie. With the proper shift in culinary metaphor, the same might be said for Europe."Bellicose" is one of the more frequently used words in the book.

After the collapse of the Western Roman Empire and the retreat of foreign invaders like the Arabs, the land-owning classes in Europe had nothing better to do than cross lances with each other, mostly in disputes over property. As Howard notes dryly, fighting became another form of litigation. So much for knights in shining armor.

Powerful families consolidated their holdings and became royalty. They recruited educated laymen as administrators and judges and tax collectors, creating in the late Middle Ages what we think of as "the state." Sound roads and reliable postal service weren't its raison d'être.

"Indeed the entire apparatus of the state primarily came into being to enable princes to wage war," Howard writes. "With few exceptions, these princes still saw themselves, and were seen by their subjects, essentially as warrior leaders, and they took every opportunity to extend their power."

By the 18th century peace came to be perceived as a matter of maintaining a "balance of power" among these states. Ironically, that balance "might have to be constantly adjusted by wars," Howard says. "Indeed an explicit rationale given to Parliament for the maintenance of a standing army in Britain, until the middle of the 19th century, was `the maintenance of the balance of power.' "

But the 18th century also saw the birth of the idea that peace could be something more than simply respite between wars, that it could become the rule rather than the exception in international relations. Howard credits the philosophers and intellectuals of the Enlightenment, the German philosopher Immanuel Kant above all.

"[Kant] was almost alone in understanding that the demolition of the military structures built up in Europe over the past millennium would be no more than a preliminary clearing of the ground," Howard writes. "New foundations would then have to be laid: peace had to be established. Its ultimate consummation would take a very long time, if indeed it ever occurred at all."

It hasn't occurred, obviously. Howard continues his survey through the 19th-century rise of nationalism and the idea that Germans, Italians, Serbs, Hungarians and every other people should have their own nation-state. As recent events in the Balkans have shown, that opened "a Pandora's box whose contents have not yet been exhausted."

Pausing over moments when a "new world order" seemed to be evolving -- after the fall of Napoleon, at the end of World War I, after the collapse of communism in 1989 -- the author explores why peace proved so tenuous and impermanent. Here as throughout the book he paints in broad strokes.

Certainly the most controversial parts of the book come in the final two chapters. Howard has favorable things to say about Henry Kissinger, approving the latter's emphasis on a foreign policy based on national interest and balance-of-power considerations rather than, say, human rights or idealistic crusades. The two pages Howard devotes to the former American secretary of state are more than he devotes to any other single statesman.

Howard's outlook is rooted in a certain kind of conservatism. He believes the best promise of permanent peace lies in fostering in developing countries "bourgeois" societies like those in Europe and North America. That means encouraging an economic middle class, relatively efficient and honest government bureaucracies and a reliable legal system. What's troubling is his apparent willingness to countenance "authoritarian" regimes like that of Gen. Augusto Pinochet in Chile, for example, so long as they germinate a middle class that eventually will insist on a more democratic government.

"The alternative to such authoritarianism may be not democratic institutions but an anarchic jungle, in which warlords roam free, or a reactionary populist theocratic dictatorships like the Taliban," he contends. "Modernization may lead ultimately to the dissemination of Enlightenment values, but it needs a framework of social and political order if it is to get going at all."

On the other hand, unlike many naive champions of laissez-faire capitalism, he doesn't think that embracing the free market guarantees a country will also embrace liberal political values and a peaceful posture toward its neighbors. Neither the global market nor the communications revolution necessarily establishes peace. His chief examples here are the former Soviet Union and Africa, where what has replaced socialism isn't Western capitalism but "kleptocracy." He writes:

"Capitalism, or the rule of the market, is effective only when practiced by communities where there already exist stable civil societies held together by efficient bureaucracies and common moral values, conditions that the market itself is powerless to create."

Howard takes seriously the popular backlash against global capitalism manifested in things like the anti-World Trade Organization protests in Seattle in 1999. "Global competition often results in local ruin," he notes. As a result, we can expect economic and social tensions to push farther into the future the promised land.

He also cites religion-based opposition to Western cultural values as a source of continuing world conflict. The Islamic fundamentalist regimes in Iran and Afghanistan are his examples. Interestingly, he has nothing to say about China.

Howard isn't very hopeful. "Although it is tempting to believe that as the international bourgeois community extends its influence a new and stable world order will gradually come into being," he writes mournfully on the final page, "we would be unwise to expect anything of the kind."

So The Invention of Peace is a sort of dash of cold water in the face. It is a blow delivered, however, with considerable clarity and grace.